“Bless you! What a treat!” cried Bud happily, and helped to cinch up the calico, who squealed at every tug.
Stelton, his dark face flushed to the color of mahogany, sullenly left him the privilege and walked away.
Presently they mounted, and Bud, with a loud “So-long” and a wave of the hand to some of the punchers, turned south. Julie, loping beside him, looked up curiously at this.
“I thought you were going north, Bud,” she cried.
“Changed my plans overnight,” he replied non-committally, and she did not press the subject further, feeling, with a woman’s intuition, that war was in the air.
Ten miles south, at the ford of the southern branch of Grass Creek, she drew up her horse as the signal for their separation, and faced north. Bud, still headed southward, put Pinte alongside of her and took her hand.
“It’s been a blessing to see you, you’re so civilized,” she said, half-seriously. “Do come again.” 41
“Then you do sometimes miss the things you have been educated to?”
“Yes, Bud, I do, but not often. Seeing you has brought back a flood of memories that I am happier without.”
“And that is what you have done for me, dear girl,” he said in a low tone as he pressed her hand. The next moment, with a nonchalant “So-long,” the parting of the plains, he had dug the spurs into his horse and ridden away.